Ingredients
- 1 cup solid vegetable shortening
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar (divided 1 + 1/2)
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup dark molasses
- 1 tablespoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 2 cups flour
Tools
- Mixer
- Medium mixing bowl
- Small mixing bowl
- Measuring spoons
- Measuring cups
- Rubber scraper shaped like a spoon
- Spatula
- Cookie sheets
- Cooling racks
Method
- Set oven rack in the center position and preheat to 350 degrees F.
- Stir the baking soda, salt cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and flour into a small mixing bowl.
- Cream the shortening and 1 cup of the sugar together with a mixer in a medium bowl, stir in the egg and molasses.
- Stir in the combined dry ingredients.
- Form dough into one-inch-diameter balls and roll in the remaining sugar.
- Place 2 to 3 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
- Bake for 12 minutes.
- Cool on cookie sheets until firm.
- Remove carefully with spatula onto cooling racks.
- When completely cool, store in a sealed container.
Notes
- Do not use margarine or butter as a substitution for the shortening.
- These cookies are generally good for up to a week in storage, but they probably won’t last long in storage, because people seem to really like them and they disappear rapidly.
- Approximate yield: 4 dozen cookies
- The darker the molasses the better.
- I use a portioning scoop to get a consistent size when making these cookies. I usually fit between 12 (3 columns of 4 rows) to 20 (4 columns of 5 rows) cookies per sheet depending on the size I am making.
- The recipe can be doubled, quadrupled, octupled or otherwise multipled about as far as you want to go.